One night in Bangkok...or seven!

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Ok so this entry is a long time coming, it seems like we were in Thailand so long ago! Writing this particular entry seems quite daunting because we have so much to say about Bangkok, we did some really exciting stuff while there. But before we could do anything we spent three days in the hotel, well Alex did as he ate or drank something to upset his stomach. We suspect it was a coffee he drank at a locals hang out that was made with warm water, instead of boiling. So Ashley spent the next few days running around nearby streets looking for red fanta (not orange!) and plain rice takeaways for Alex.
When we finally emerged to explore the city together we found a city filled with some awesome markets and abundant Watts and tuks-tuks (three wheeled motorbike taxis). Our first stop was the Chinatown night market, where we found some pretty bizarre foods, lots of fried insects and dried squid. Much to Alex’s disappointed, Ashley forbade him from getting any as just hours before he was unable to be more than 5 ft from the toilet. Perhaps any girl’s dream, if they can stand the heat and people pushing, would be Chatuchuck, or simply, the weekend market. There are almost 9,000 stalls selling anything you could want, from the smallest nails, to foods, designer knock offs, tribal outfits, antiques and all sorts of animals. We spent about an hour in this market, wondering up and down narrow paths, probably seeing about 10 percent of it, before becoming too tired. Ashley’s favourite market was probably the stalls on Kho San road. We were able to fine tune our bargaining skills here and develop our good cop/bad cop routine that still continues to score us some remarkable deals. Who do you think was the bad cop most of the time? Of course it was Ashley, at some points the shop keepers would be so annoyed with her because she ended up getting the things she wanted so cheaply that it made them wish they hadn’t bothered approaching us. One peddler was so upset at the price he sold his stuff for that he walked away from Ashley, cutting his eyes at her and mumbling something.
When we weren’t walking around markets we were walking around watts. Watts a watt you may ask...ok corny joke!... it is a Buddhist temple, usually with a sitting, standing or reclining Buddha. Perhaps the funniest encounter we had was when a monk pointed to a stone table and told us that it was the Buddha’s footprint. We looked at this stone and failing to see anything we asked the guy to repeat himself and yet again he said “footprint.”Not wanting to seem stupid we both nodded and pretended to see it. Upon our return home we will show you all a photo of this stone and you can tell us what you think.
We soon learned that if we wanted to take tuk tuks around then we were in for a bit of a detour. We usually stopped at a tailor or jewellery shop, “just to look” as the driver told us, so he could get free gas. Much to the happiness of one tuk-tuk driver, who gained a commission off our purchases, we had three amazing suits and six dress shirts made.
After seeing most of the city centre we decided it was time to venture out and explore the surrounding areas of Bangkok, so we headed to a recommended travel agent. The guys name was Jeffery and after completely ignoring Ashley and asking Alex for his last name he said that he was changing his last name to White too. We spent the next 2 hours in the office with Jeffery openly flirting with Alex, saying things such as: “I like you cause you are big strong man” and “he wanted to take Alex to a gay bar.” We left the office with Alex feeling completely violated, but at least we got a discount on our 3 trips!
To read about these three trips, to the Tiger temple, cobra show and floating market look at our next blog entry.

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Photos

...and One morning in Bangkok
Early every morning you can see the procession to Monks

Knee deep in some spots
Every afternoon it would rain for about an hour. It was funny to watch the shop keepers uselessly trying to sweep the water away with their handmade brooms.

Temple peaks
As the locals say, "Same Same...but different"

Reclining buddha at Wat Pho
The sign read: Do not rub the Buddha's toes...yet they were worn away anyway.

Wat Phra Keow, aka the emerald buddha
Amazing detail, and this is the outside wall!

Thats Ashley in the center of the palace gates
She got the scare of her life when the guards started marching towards her with their guns...but it was only a changing of the guards.